The Sacred Cathedral was steeped in a silence that pressed like frost on skin.

Pale moonlight spilled from high above, stretching the Holy Maiden’s crouched shadow like a quiet swipe erasing chalk.

She drew a deep breath; gloom swelled, then she steadied it, so healing magic could slip in like warm rain.

As the mending intensified, light needled from her fingertips into wounds, rising as wavering pillars that shed glitter like a great moth.

It fell with odd weight, a golden dust settling over Hedi and Selina.

“Are these two alright?” a nun asked, filling the air with words like stones tossed into a still pond.

The Holy Maiden’s mood ballooned, then shrank; beneath her muddled face lurked a force, like a trapped fawn with a broken leg.

She shook her head; her trembling seemed bent by gravity and thick air, a sight that fell like bad news.

“Something... is stopping my magic from sealing the wounds...”

A nun seized the thread and flung two questions like darts: “What? Whose body?”

“Melvina.”

“Why say your own name? Are you feeling unwell?” The question skittered like a startled sparrow.

“Hedi Melvina, lying on the floor.” Her voice dulled, like a bell wrapped in cloth.

She’d always called her Little Gray-hair to avoid matching names before the nuns, yet now the true name slipped out like a fish.

Why, she couldn’t say; her head felt packed with lettuce frozen then thawed, crisping into squeaks and leaving crumbled grains.

“Two Hedi Melvinas?” one nun asked, her voice bobbing like a cork.

“I remember!” another nun answered. “A paper once ran Melvina winning an Arcane Award. The photo showed gray-white hair.”

The Holy Maiden rose and cut the chatter like a blade through reeds. “Carry Selina inside. She’ll wake in a while.”

“So odd... the badly hurt recover faster...” Words drifted like mist.

“It’s bruises from blows. Don’t expect her to spring up; she still needs time to rest.”

“Mel... what about the other Melvina?” The name faltered like a frayed thread.

“Little Gray-hair—” The Holy Maiden listened to her mind turning like gears. “She shows marks from blows too. Without the cause, she may never wake.”

The nuns let out a breath together, like a sigh from bellows. “At first light, we can take her to the hospital.”

“You were roused by the noise and worked till now. Go sleep.” Her words fell like a blanket.

“We still don’t understand anything. It’s all a muddle.” Their voices tangled like yarn.

“No rush. First carry Selina to rest.” Calm gathered like dew.

“And the other?” The question hung like a lantern in fog.

The Holy Maiden stayed silent, then let out an “ah,” as if the words crossed miles before reaching her ear.

After a breath, her tone softened like velvet. “Bring her to my room. I’ll look for the cause.”

“Any other orders?” one nun checked, her eyes like careful lamps.

The Holy Maiden shook her head and watched them scatter like swallows, while pale grains bubbled up in her mind.

Their shapes blurred, then cleared, cycling like tides on a mirror. Why was it like this?

Thinking, she heard their footsteps slip past her ears like mice.

Before dawn, the Sacred Cathedral returned to its seasonal hush, a quiet that lay like frost over stone.

The knife-cold wind, the black woods, the dusky Gothic spire—everything drifted off like a stiff trout.

She cleared her thoughts and wandered back to her room, where Hedi lay like a glass figurine under gentle moonlight.

“Little trouble-magnet.” The Holy Maiden sat by the bed, quiet as a teacup. “As a child you were like this; grown, still.”

She kept nudging Hedi’s lips with her finger, like tapping a sleeping bird. “Trouble finds you, whether you look for it or not.”

“When I teased you, you’d say, ‘I’m a special existence that attracts danger.’ Maybe surviving gave you that boldness.”

“Now you’ve been beaten. Waking at all is a question.” The thought fell like a stone into a well.

She lay beside Hedi, murmuring like rain against eaves. “Some Spellcasters shield their brains from mind magic...”

“If you carry the same safeguard, I can’t rouse you. My research is limited, and Naghtown lacks your caliber.”

“Cracking the cipher in your head would be impossible here.” Her sigh unspooled like smoke.

“But if you keep sleeping, Selina will scream the rafters loose.” She placed her palm on Hedi’s brow, feeling inner magic ripple.

“I told you about Bertha’s funeral out of selfishness. I needed something to happen, or your trip felt empty.”

“Just returning to the Sacred Cathedral that raised you, and I still thought like that. Strange? Not at all.”

“You thrived outside and never spared a glance here.” Her words rustled like dry leaves.

“I know, I know—you’d blame Dark Magic, and our letters scolding you, blah blah.”

“But that’s not why you wanted to come back.” Her tone sat like a stone. “You should’ve torn up that urgent letter.”

“Then you wouldn’t have dumbly fallen asleep. Asking who attacked is useless now.”

“The police took suspected troublemakers away. When Selina wakes, she can give answers.”

“But you—when will you wake? I can’t handle Selina. She’ll turn the Sacred Cathedral upside down!”

She lowered her eyes, lonely as dusk. “Even so, your inner magic doesn’t change.”

“Isn’t Dark Magic born from emotion? Why no reaction? Do you need someone else’s voice, not mine?”

“I clearly... care for you so much... whenever it’s you...” Her plea tremored like a plucked string. “Give me some sign.”

“Even a faint magic twitch.” Her anger flashed like a match. “What’s the point of sleeping like this?!”

“You always hated the habit of oversleeping. How did you grow into what you despised?”

Like a cat in a new room, the Holy Maiden stroked Hedi’s cheek with care, soft as silk.

“The Priest told me, when he was dying, that you studied Dark Magic.”

“He never said it plain, but his reaction showed you’d made a grave mistake.”

“He kept repeating, ‘I’m so glad you came,’ ‘If you hadn’t, I’d wrong you,’ ‘So young shouldn’t suffer punishment.’”

She fell silent, memory opening like a cold door: the hospital room where the Priest neared death.

It was narrow, long, and indifferent, holding only one bed and small medical devices.

Even the air felt thin in that tight space, like paper.

Outside, a windbreak of pines stood, their packed trunks a hard screen, cutting the hospital off from the noisy world.

The Priest lay on the bed, eye sockets sunken, beard spreading like weeds across withered skin.

Compared to a month before, he was more shriveled; his gaunt face like a weathered peach pit.

He lifted his hand weakly; guilt and pleading pooled in his eyes as he apologized again and again.

After apologizing, the Priest shut his eyes; tears ran into wrinkled grooves, then he opened them faintly to the ceiling.

He murmured, raw as a scraped reed, “Hedi... I’m truly, truly... sorry for you...”

From that moment, I knew he never mistook me for Melvina. He always knew Hedi Melvina wasn’t here.

“It’s alright,” Alina said. “I don’t blame you.” My voice rested like a hand on his.

The Priest closed his eyes. The room sank into quiet like sand.